An introduction to herbology
The first lesson on her schedule had been labelled as herbology. The subject which her brother had moaned and groaned about non stop over Christmas when he returned. He called it ‘unthinkably stupid’ to his parents who had chided him for not taking pride in his work.
However Diana was a different story. She had learned at a Young age that you could not simply tell a persons intentions by looking at them. Peoples souls were tricky matters, and it was often she was incorrect in her assumptions.
She had fallen in love with the qilin as a girl. After all they were beautiful creatures with the most rarest of abilities. They could feel a persons soul.
So, she had taken to caring for plants. They were easy and yet complex. As if the two opposing sides could inexplicably intertwine to create the most beautiful of things. Lilies had always been a favourite, along with snapping dragon weed.
For her seventh birthday her mother had provided her with a small greenhouse where she was free to grow her ‘small plant army’ away from the grimy hands of her brother.
Alas at Hogwarts a safe space for her plants seemed to be difficult to find. Until one evening.
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It had been late September by the time she felt comfortable to allow her plants to grow, which is when she began to seek out a space for them.
She had asked James after one of his transfiguration lessons if he knew of a location, to which his response had been “do you require it?”
Diana wanted to slap the boy. And so she did.
It was a rather brutal slap for an eleven year old girl to dish out, and left a bright red mark across James’ cheek, his glasses too had been knocked off his smug face and very nearly cracked.
“Oi! You little git what was that for?!” James got on his knees and began to rummage for his glasses, none of his friends even offered a hand, instead choosing to snicker behind their hands.
“Tell you what - since you think it’s so funny why don’t you show her pads?” James grumbled, managing to position his glasses back on his nose.
Sirius’ jaw dropped out of annoyance and his hands flailed about “why me?!” Diana didn’t know whether to take it as a compliment or not, and decided it was better to nip the problem in the bud “am I a burden? Because if you’ve got something better to do I can leave”.
Even though the thought of not having to lift a finger tempted Sirius, he sighed dramatically and placed a hand on her shoulder and began to usher her down the corridor.
The boy seemed miserable, and to Diana it seemed genuine. She had always been good at hiding how she truly felt, after all. Girls are to be seen and not heard, is what her grandmother had always told her, even though it was a rather vile statement.
Sirius had his hand on her shoulder, arm stretched across the length of her shoulders as he led her down a corridor “think about your plants, what’s going to happen if they don’t get a green house?” To Diana that felt almost mocking, and she turned around to snap at him.
“You really are like they say you are. You’re obnoxious you know-“ just as she was about to continue her rant his features twisted into a smug grin, and the sound of stone rumbling overlapped her words.
“You were saying?” He bowed his head down to her level before pressing his forefinger against her forehead. She spun around and furrowed her brows, glasses dropping slightly before she pushed them back up.
What had once been an unremarkable stone wall had instead transformed into a pair of large, intimidating oak doors.
“What did you do?” She spoke softly, still unsure about the boy’s intentions.
Sirius huffed “Merlin’s beard! James really did take all the sense of adventure” before he pressed his hand into her back and pushed her towards the door. She protested somewhat before he pulled the door open by the cold metal handles and ushered her inside.
As she stepped in the climate had changed drastically. As opposed to the cold, almost chilly September weather this room was more temperate. It felt like she had stepped into a different country all together.
Different species of floral life crawled up the walls and lay in various pots and planters, with a nice clear pond of water in the centre.
Diana didn’t question the miracle, and placed her currently suicidal looking planter of asphodel on the centre table. “Like it?” Sirius strutted over to her, and instead of looking like the charming, Casanova he thought he was he looked more like a pigeon with a broken foot, and Diana did not spare him the comparison.
“You walk funny. Like some sort of demented bird, are you ill?” She deadpanned, bowing down to look as his legs as though expecting the bone to be peaking out. Sirius scrambled for words, but all that came out was an infuriated huff of air.
“You’re hard work.”
He had no idea.